MacBook Air M1 battery drain - anybody else...?!

[inc0gnito]

Hi guys,

Received my brand spanking new MA M1 yesterday and it's a great machine indeed. Fast and responsive!

However... I do find that my battery life is much shorter than what everybody have reported? I understand I wouldn't get 16 hours as reported, but I was expecting at least 10...? I will list my observations below.

1. Battery has drained 6% while sleeping - I have read most of you don't have any drain overnight? It was sleeping between midnight and 10am - you can see battery draining on the graph attached.

2. Just running MS outlook and Safari (5 tabs) I would lose around 20% in 1.5 hour. I haven't used Chrome, all of the updates and indexing were done yesterday. I have had computer on for 1.5hr this morning and it went from 83% to 66% in less than 2 hours. I understand Outlook isn't optimised yet, but still it drained more than running benchmarks or using Zoom (the famous thread!).

Anybody else experienced something similar? Any recommendations on "resetting" the battery or anything else I could do?

Strange...

Thanks,
P.

 

[Zazoh]

I ran on power first two days. Day one focused on RAM, day two CPU. I’ll run battery all day and share.

 

[fafafooey]

No

 

[Diskutant]

I got mine yesterday, it started with 80% battery, it was busy with photos stuff for like 2-3 hours, I used air during that time checking what's new in Big Sur and browsing the web, nothing wild. After that the battery was at around 65%. I used it further, doing nothing wild and at the end of the day (after around 8-9 hours of usage) the battery was at 32%.

It drained faster than I thought it would, especially after it was done with the indexing and whatnot. I will check how much battery is left when I'm back at home (it's sleeping now), and how much it drains when used.

 

[hefeglass]

slept 8 hours and it looks like I didnt lose any charge on my m1 mbp. ended up getting near 18 hours from that charge!
these machines are so efficient

 

[inc0gnito]

I got mine yesterday, it started with 80% battery, it was busy with photos stuff for like 2-3 hours, I used air during that time checking what's new in Big Sur and browsing the web, nothing wild. After that the battery was at around 65%. I used it further, doing nothing wild and at the end of the day (after around 8-9 hours of usage) the battery was at 32%.

It drained faster than I thought it would, especially after it was done with the indexing and whatnot. I will check how much battery is left when I'm back at home (it's sleeping now), and how much it drains when used.

Thanks, it would be useful seeing if anybody else experiencing the same problem! I will try doing SMC reset later on, want to drain it first to see how much use I was able to get.

 

[inc0gnito]

slept 8 hours and it looks like I didnt lose any charge on my m1 mbp. ended up getting near 18 hours from that charge!
these machines are so efficient

Lucky you! For me draining during sleep is the most concerning. I would assume it something software related but... waiting to see!

 

[lightfire]

Could be MS Outlook background downloads that caused the overnight drain. If you can live without it, uninstall and monitor for another night.

 

[raymanh]

What apps etc have you installed on it?

 

[Diskutant]

My Battery is at 22% now.

I'm a bit baffled about the window server process which is taking around 25% most of the time.
FaceTime Audio uses around 25% too, that seems quite a lot, doesn't it?

 

[Gnattu]

My Battery is at 22% now.

I'm a bit baffled about the window server process which is taking around 25% most of the time.
FaceTime Audio uses around 25% too, that seems quite a lot, doesn't it?

Not a lot actually.
You got 100% for each cpu core(4core at 100% will be reported as 400% for that process), so it is a moderate usage for multi core cpus.

 

[Pancrecio]

I dont understand why people still insist in using Microcrap software, with so much better stuff out there

 

[inc0gnito]

Could be MS Outlook background downloads that caused the overnight drain. If you can live without it, uninstall and monitor for another night.

Will definitely do that tomorrow! I think all of my messages are downloaded by now, but it's entirely possible it's trying to download overnight. Thanks!

 

[inc0gnito]

What apps etc have you installed on it?

not much to be honest.

I have MS Office package (not used at all), Spotify, Remote Desktop, Notion, WhatsApp, Woven and Chrome (not used either).

No dropbox, or anything else that should be working in the background.

 

[CheesePuff]

I dont understand why people still insist in using Microcrap software, with so much better stuff out there

Because it’s the industry standard?

 

[chabig]

Thanks, it would be useful seeing if anybody else experiencing the same problem! I will try doing SMC reset later on, want to drain it first to see how much use I was able to get.

I recommend doing nothing. The machine is designed to take care of itself. Don't go messing around with things that aren't broken. Obviously, your battery is being used for something. That's what the battery is for. Let it run its course and stop obsessing over it.

 

[inc0gnito]

I recommend doing nothing. The machine is designed to take care of itself. Don't go messing around with things that aren't broken. Obviously, your battery is being used for something. That's what the battery is for. Let it run its course and stop obsessing over it.

Some stoicism here... I guess this is the first option I am going to explore - maybe something will get better on its own. I doubt it's a hardware problem.

 

[inc0gnito]

I dont understand why people still insist in using Microcrap software, with so much better stuff out there

Industry standard indeed... And I genuinely like outlook for work.

 

[Zazoh]

24% after all day on Battery since about 7:30am (Last Charge 4:38pm day before)
Overnight lost under 1%



6 and a 1/2 hours of screen time running VM Ware Horizon Client into work computer. Anytime I hovered over battery it was saying it was using Significant Energy. It is an Intel App.

After lunch seemed slower drain. I also watched and used iMessage and Safari most of the day for various tasks. WiFi all day.



Right now I'm getting significant energy usage from this site, as there are ADs all over the place, gonna buy out of that tonight as I spend loads of time on this site.

 

[christophermdia]

took off charger at 9:30am and @ 3pm was at 79% used in full brightness outside, a couple of zoom calls, powerpoint web browsing etc ...

 

[Magnificent]

I ran on power first two days. Day one focused on RAM, day two CPU. I’ll run battery all day and share.

What is your opinion about ram? Does 8Gb ram good enough as reviewers told?

 

[Zazoh]

What is your opinion about ram? Does 8Gb ram good enough as reviewers told?

I’ve got posts all over this forum about ram. Plenty for me, software developer who remotes into work on VM Ware Horizon client, simultaneously using Zoom, Safari, other Mac Apps and my Memory pressure graph has been green and a flatline on about 1/4 of the scale, which is 2 GB. with iPad as sidecar and connected to a 4K external LG monitor.

Now, in about 10 min someone is going to come behind me and say they can’t open the lid and sign in without 32 GB of ram, one for every sticker on the MacBook and they want to future proof for the next 10 years years. But, Apple is a trillion dollar company who’s base models are more than enough for the masses. (They know what they are doing)

Yes there are cases where some need more capabilities and one can configure a $50k Pro, but those users are in the 1000s not millions category.

I’ve always bought base, 4 in my family so every purchase at some point becomes x4. None of us have any complaints.

 

[Diskutant]

I got mine yesterday, it started with 80% battery, it was busy with photos stuff for like 2-3 hours, I used air during that time checking what's new in Big Sur and browsing the web, nothing wild. After that the battery was at around 65%. I used it further, doing nothing wild and at the end of the day (after around 8-9 hours of usage) the battery was at 32%.

It drained faster than I thought it would, especially after it was done with the indexing and whatnot. I will check how much battery is left when I'm back at home (it's sleeping now), and how much it drains when used.

Yesterday evening battery was at 10% I loaded it up to 80% used it some hours after that, I didn't do anything wild. Mostly browsing. I did a short test using Handbrake (1.4 beta native), trying to convert a h.264 video to h.265 but that was at 10fps, so I stopped it after a few minutes. After reading so much about how powerful the m1 is I expected more from that.

Now the battery is at 40%, after around 13 hours of usage according to the battery settings.

 

[Magnificent]

I’ve got posts all over this forum about ram. Plenty for me, software developer who remotes into work on VM Ware Horizon client, simultaneously using Zoom, Safari, other Mac Apps and my Memory pressure graph has been green and a flatline on about 1/4 of the scale, which is 2 GB. with iPad as sidecar and connected to a 4K external LG monitor.

Now, in about 10 min someone is going to come behind me and say they can’t open the lid and sign in without 32 GB of ram, one for every sticker on the MacBook and they want to future proof for the next 10 years years. But, Apple is a trillion dollar company who’s base models are more than enough for the masses. (They know what they are doing)

Yes there are cases where some need more capabilities and one can configure a $50k Pro, but those users are in the 1000s not millions category.

I’ve always bought base, 4 in my family so every purchase at some point becomes x4. None of us have any complaints.

Thank you very much for your informative and detailed reply. I have an order which hasn’t been delivered yet (8th gen Intel pro 16gb ram) and now according to your explanations and reviews on YouTube, I am going to return it back. I spouse it is much more better idea to buy a new am1 air with 8gb ram for now and for the future

 

[thettareddast]

I don't think I have sleep drain or anything bad.

I just don't believe the review claims that people can do "2 full days of work" or for casual use "go a week without charging".

For my standard use of mostly Outlook and browser -- simple workload -- i can do a full work day without charge. But the 14 hours of actual "computing" or whatever... nah